The Circle Continues
by badmove
Summary: This is the story of Comas, Lark's newest charge at Discipline. Comas is just coming into his power - and is overcoming some "personal issues".


I don't own anything Circle of Magic or anything else by Tamora Pierce. This first chapter is a combination of excerpt from the book, The Circle Opens and fiction that I made up. Hope you like it!

Chapter 1: Wandering Minds and Weaving Fingers

Comas lay on his new bed, listening to the sound of Lark weaving into the night. He recalled the conversation he had overheard just a few days before, which had led to him getting this bedroom. He could still hardly believe that it had actually happened.

_He sat at the top of the stair to the garret, listening. He knew that eavesdropping was wrong, but he also knew they were talking about him. A little. Enough for him to be listening about anyway. _

_"I've been very silly." The young woman had ventured upon hugging Lark. She was a noble! The noble who had lived here! One of the four mages!_

_"You did a hard thing, for reasons that everyone agreed were right," Lark said firmly. "You acted as an adult, and you did it without hate. I'm not sure I could have done it without hating them, after seeing that poor maimed boy."_

_They were talking about the Dinahur murders – about how the Dinahurs had been caught and killed on the spot. Lady Sandrilene was the cause of that!?!_

_"There's blood on my hands," whispered the noble. She executed them?! Dragon Dung! Comas couldn't believe his ears._

_They spoke more about the murderers and a little about each of their students, and then Lark yelled up._

"_Comas, if you don't come down, Sandry and I will eat all the spice bread ourselves." Comas was too shy to answer. He didn't know what to say, he didn't want to say the wrong thing, especially in front of a lady._

"_He's the new student?" asked Lady Sandrilene. Sandry, Lark had called her. "He's a bit odd."_

"_He isn't odd." Comas heard the rattle of plates on a table. "He's so shy it half-cripples him, poor thing. He agrees with nearly anything he's told to do, which is how he became a novice in the first place. I've got my work cut out for me, to break him of **that**."_

_Well, of course Comas was shy! It was just so hard to live in a world where disappointing people could mean getting flogged or a week without food. He was just too afraid to disappoint anyone. He hated it when people got mad at him. If anyone told him anything, he'd just follow it, no questions asked – just so they wouldn't get mad and hurt him. Even sometimes when he'd done right people had hurt him. _

_Comas tuned back in to the conversation._

"_Let him have my room," the Lady was saying. "That way he doesn't have so far to run and hide."_

"_You needn't do that. You know Daja sleeps mostly at the forge when she's here at Winding Circle." Lark was talking about the other great mage who had stayed there, whose room he had now. _

"_My room's got better light for a weaver," Lady Sandrilene replied quietly. "And it's nice, being next to your workshop. I used to listen to you weave, late at night. I bet Comas would like that too." _

She used to listen to Lark weave late at night too. Just as he was doing now. This noble amazed him. After that...

"_Then why don't you go and tell him yourself?" asked Lark. "He knows that you are my student – you can reassure him that you aren't jealous."_

"_I have an idea." Comas heard the Lady get to her feet. "My student is too outgoing, and yours isn't outgoing enough. We'll mash them together and teach them as one boy. Then we'll mix them up a little and make two new boys who are almost perfect. Teachers will come from everywhere to guess our secret." _

_Now the noble was scaring him a little. Was it possible that they would do that? Was it possible that they could do that? _

"_Mila, don't let Comas hear you," said Lark with the humor audible in her voice. "He might think we could actually do it."_

_He still wasn't entirely sure they couldn't. He inched back to his room as he heard the Lady approach and start climbing. _

_When she came in, Comas was sitting on his bed, thinking of all that he had just heard. She startled him a little, because although she looked like a noble and had the atmosphere of a noble, she also carried with her a feeling of, of being home, and loved. She was beautiful, thin and a bit bony. She reminded him of something he had heard of once called an angel._

"_I'm sorry to have startled you when I came in earlier," she began. "I am here to invite you to come down stairs and eat spice bread with us, if you would like."_

"_Yes, Lady Sandrilene." The answer was automatic. Oh, he hoped she didn't get mad at him._

"_You can call me Sandry, you know. All my friends call me that; and, after all, we are both students of Lark. Right?"_

"_Yes, Lady Sandrilene."_

_She grinned and said, "Come, we must talk about your new sleeping arrangements. I think you will like them quite a bit more." Lady Sandrilene (Sandry, she had invited him to call her Sandry!) started out of the room. Comas followed sheepishly, hoping he had done and said all the right things. _

Comas loved and hated remembering that conversation. After it, he had been quite taken with the noble. He had developed a fairly large crush on her. So, Comas lay and thought of the different, dashing things he could have said. Things that might have wooed her, or things that might have made him look less like a small insignificant beetle.

He lay and thought, the sounds of weaving slowly lulling him to sleep.


End file.
